


Conviction

by TheRavenintheMoon



Series: Long Lost Souls [17]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 10:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRavenintheMoon/pseuds/TheRavenintheMoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief meeting of two paladins who stand on opposing sides.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conviction

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I probably own nothing, except maybe my characters. I know that Blizzard, however, owns a small chunk of my soul...
> 
> Also, I have stolen Ellinaer's last line from agent Coulson in the Avengers movie...as that is what more or less inspired this story.

**_Conviction_ **

**_Lorelay and Ellinaer_ **

****

            There was fog in the lowlands. The lake was a deathtrap, invisible in the thick, damp layer of cloud. All activity in Camp Mohache had come close to a standstill, all the locals tense with waiting for an attack, either from the Grimtotem post, the gnoll camps, or the well-hidden Alliance base that they knew was somewhere nearby. The atmosphere was, in every sense, choking the apathy right out of Lorelay. For the first time in what felt like years, she was itching for a fight. And one thing was certain: if she hung around the town waiting, as she usually did, for the fight to come to her, she was going to explode.

            Quietly, she saddled her black warhorse and made a muttered excuse to the guard at the gate. She would go looking for refugees from the Thousand Needles disaster who might have wandered off the road in the fog, she said. It was a noble enough cause, she figured, to easily mask her ulterior motive. For once, she was glad she had established herself as a healer, and not just as an itinerant hero. Though the latter was best for avoiding having to do any actual work while she was in town, she’d been feeling—worthless, that was probably the word—since she had wandered into Feralas, and had decided to help out a little. She had regretted this almost immediately, as she despised being cooped up in the healers’ tent, tending to the wounds caused by the constant pressure of the tri-fold threats lurking in the wilderness.

            There was no freedom from the trapped feeling in the fog. Within moments of riding out onto the road, Camp Mohache sank out of sight. The fog closed in, beading on Lorelay’s helm and soaking into her cloak. She carried the town’s wary tension with her, straining eyes and ears for any sign of life. But even the lapping of the lake as it stirred on its way to join the river was muffled. Surely, no one was as foolish as she. Surely everyone had stayed put to wait for the air to clear.

            Without noticing, she drifted gently away from the road, hoofbeats changing from a soft clatter to a muted thump as the loosely paved dirt gave way to thick, tangled grass. Her horse warily skirted hummocks and dips, but more or less obeyed Lorelay’s command to keep moving forward. She was torn from her own dismal, foggy thoughts when the warhorse stopped suddenly, and refused to go any further. She dismounted, half-drawing her sword as she moved in front of the drooping horse. With a clang, the pommel of her short sword struck something large and solid. Blinking, Lorelay took a closer look, and realized that she had wandered far into the wilds. Above her head towered the rounded rise of the Emerald Summit.

            A grin, her usual guarded mirthless quirk of the lips that never managed to reach her green-glowing eyes, flitted across her face. Maybe here she could get above the stifling blanket of fog. Carefully, she led her horse along the base of the cliff until she found the narrow strip of beaten earth that circled up to the summit. A few minutes’ cautious circling led her to the flat top.

            There was clear air. That was the first thing she noticed as her head emerged from the cloud, offering her a grand view of the standing stones that adorned the top of the Summit, set in a flat grassy space surrounded by the grey sea. The second thing she saw was a human, mail-clad, crouched back against one of the standing stones, a large, double-headed battle-axe easily balanced in her hands. Her brown hair was pinned on top of her head, soaked by sweat and rain. Her helm, obviously forgotten, lay a few feet away, along with a sodden cloak and the pathetic remains of a cold, damp lunch. Clearly, the human had been caught in the fog, and had hoped to avoid losing her way by waiting it out up here. But with that shifting grey mass leaving the Summit’s peak a virtual island, how had the human known Lorelay was coming…?

            Lorelay grimaced, remembering the loud ringing of pommel on stone, and the muffled hoofbeats that must have preceded her up the path. She should have been more cautious—but her cold grin was already crossing her face again. The human, she realized, was waiting, defending, when she should have been attacking, pressing her advantage while Lorelay stood confused. Though clear of the clinging fog, the itch to fight was stronger than ever. With a cry, the blood elf drew her short sword as she swung her shield across her arm, throwing herself forward to attack.

            There was a ringing crash as the human’s great axe swung around, catching Lorelay’s swing easily against the heavy haft. Lorelay disengaged, dodging the spell-hammer that swung at her helmed head. Another paladin, she thought, bringing her shield around to block a slice glowing with light. This just got very interesting. Lorelay cast her own spell-hammer, parrying with a cut that was once again blocked on the thick haft, taking a small chip from the polished wood.

            The human was quick, light on her feet despite her sodden mail—her discarded cloak was probably a blessing, as Lorelay’s was a wet weight at her back—and she swung the battle axe as if it weighed nothing at all. Lorelay’s arm, smarting from a blow to her shield, was proof that the axe, and the human who wielded it, were deadlier than the mismatched pair would seem. Seeing an opening, Lorelay drove in, her sword point scraping against mail, tearing a jagged cut in the tabard the paladin wore.

            The human dodged back, drawing a deep breath. Lorelay pressed her advantage. Under the ring of another set of blows, the paladin managed to ask, “Why?” Lorelay blinked, dredging up memories of old battles—those fought with the humans instead of against them—to reply in the same tongue, “Why not?”

            The human’s eyes narrowed, obviously displeased with the answer. She redoubled her efforts, quick as a flash of that sharp axe, and shifted forward. Her heavy blows had even greater weight. She didn’t bother dodging, much, but spent a charge of her holy power, every so often, on closing her wounds instead of simply on attacking. Lorelay struggled to block those slicing blows, watching her opponent in amazement. She knew that she was skilled, as was the other paladin, but something about the human… The other paladin’s blows fell harder, her judgment struck truer, her heals blazed brighter. Lorelay, in comparison, felt weak. She was giving ground, whipping her battered shield around to frantically block. Her own blows more and more were failing to connect. Her heals struggled to keep up with the damage, and they flared pale against the fog. Soon she was bleeding, her own torn armor sticking to her wounds.

            Lorelay almost saw the overhead cleave too late; dropping to her knees, she flung her shield arm up over her head. The shield buckled, caved, and broke into useless bits. In disgust, Lorelay flung it from her, rolling away from another blow. She took that cut on her leg instead of her torso. She couldn’t quite get that leg to support her weight as she sought to stand, her sword now merely a stand-in for the lost shield than an offensive weapon. Shuffling back, she slammed into something, sliding down as the impact knocked the wind from her. Glancing around, she realized that they had come full circle: she was now at the base of a standing stone, defending while the other attacked. In her moment of distraction, the human paladin swung her axe around in a delicate maneuver that wrenched Lorelay’s sword from her hand.

            Panting, bleeding, she cradled her sore hand to her chest and closed her eyes in expectation of the death blow. It didn’t come. Opening her eyes, she saw the paladin standing a few feet away, leaning on her axe as if it were a staff, surveying the blood elf with an odd light in her green eyes. Lorelay, grimacing, reached up to pull her battered helmet off, no longer caring. She had lost. She was dead anyway. Her short honey-blond hair, streaked dark with sweat, immediately fell across her face. She made no effort to push it out of the way either. The human tilted her head, seemingly coming to a decision. “You’re very good,” she said, a hint of confusion in her voice. And now that they were still, Lorelay could see that more of her blows had landed than she thought; there were rents in the human’s armor, and large nicks in her axe’s haft.

            “You’re better,” Lorelay hissed, wondering why the human would insult her before killing her.

            The human inspected a nick in the axe’s blade. “I don’t know that I am.”

            “You _won_ ,” Lorelay cried. “What further proof do you need? Now kill me and be done with it.”

            The human blinked, slowly. “I don’t want to kill you.”

            Lorelay stared up in shock. “I tried to kill you.”

            “Why?” the paladin asked again, calmly.

            For a long moment, Lorelay struggled to find words. _Because,_ she thought, various answers tumbling over each other in her mind, _you’re Alliance, and I’m Horde. Because you were there and I needed to—to prove that I… Because you so clearly chose your path and I took the path of least resistance. Did what I was told, because it was easier. But I’m not a fighter. I’m not a protector. I’m not even a healer. I don’t know what I am, but_ you—

            “I don’t know.”

            It took Lorelay a moment to realize that the voice was hers.

            The paladin nodded, as if she had expected as much. Then she turned away, and began to gather up the scattered remains of her lunch. Lorelay gaped, glancing to her discarded sword, and then at the paladin’s unprotected back. The human was swinging her sodden cloak around her, squashing her helm over her wet hair.

            “Aren’t you afraid that I’ll kill you now?” Lorelay called. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll stab you in the back?” Again she glanced at her sword, but made no effort to reach it.

            “No.” The answer was final. “You won’t.”

            “But—” Lorelay protested weakly.

            “I know why you lost,” the paladin said as she mounted her ( _of course_ it was white) horse. “And that is why you won’t come after me.” The paladin turned her horse, took one last look at Lorelay half-laying pathetically against the cold stone, then headed for the ramp off the Summit.

            “Why?” Lorelay cried, a bit desperately, forcing herself to her knees in a vague effort to catch the other as she began to ride away.

            “You lack conviction.” The answer floated back as the paladin disappeared into the mist.

            Slowly, Lorelay sank back against the standing stone, trying to summon up enough energy to close her wounds, her green eyes staring, lost, out over the sea of fog.


End file.
